THE VOICE OF CLEAR LIGHTNews and Inspiration from Ligmincha InstituteVolume IV, Number 8August 2, 2004**************************For easy reading, we recommend that you print out "The Voice of ClearLight."**************************IN THIS ISSUE:A Conversation with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche about his teacher,Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche (Lopon).Words from Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche."Knowledge and Experience" an edited excerpt from oralteachings given by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, 2003.Retreat Announcement: "Part One, The Ngondro" September 22-26, 2004,with Geshe Lungrig Gyaltsen, at Serenity Ridge.Sangha SharingThe Summer Retreat, July, 2004 - A Student's Experience.**************************A CONVERSATION WITH TENZIN WANGYAL RINPOCHE ABOUT HIS TEACHER,YONGDZIN TENZIN NAMDAK RINPOCHE (LOPON).This summer retreat seemed to me perfect in many ways. One such waywas that during the third week everything suddenly fell into placefor a conversation with Tenzin Rinpoche about his guide and master,Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche.After hearing Rinpoche tell one of his great stories about YongdzinRinpoche (Lopon) during one afternoon teaching, I was inspired to tryMon, Oct 3, 2005 12:03 PMPage 2 of 11to meet with him to have him share with me for publication in theVOCL, more of his thoughts and recollections about Lopon. As itturned out, there was an opening in Rinpoche's schedule and he gladlywelcomed my suggestion that we sit and talk for a bit about his greatteacher who will be coming in the fall for a week-long retreat atSerenity Ridge.When I arrived for our get-together, tape recorder in hand, Rinpocheglowed, and I was immediately drawn into his great space. He startedthe tape recorder and dove right in, his words flowing effortlesslyand beautifully from his heart, about his teacher, Yongdzin Rinpoche.Not losing any time, I began by asking Rinpoche, "In your eyes, whatare some of the qualities that Yongdzin Rinpoche embodies? How didhe affect you as a young monk?"Without hesitation, Rinpoche began, "The main quality that comes tomy mind is his compassion - the quality of his being very open, veryreceptive, with a lot of love. It is especially clear how beingaround him, we all receive so much of his blessing and love."He's always had a strong combination of an open, compassionateattitude and a great strength. The way he sees things is unshakable,unchangeable. You can clearly feel that there are areas within him -his realization, his way of seeing things, who he is - that areunshakable. And what comes out of that strength is such a loving,warm, and compassionate caring. Lopon took care of us children inthe monastery, sharing his time, food, clothes, knowledge, love -with no limits."It was quite clear what I saw in him, and I've always tried to be asopen and loving, and at the same time, as strong as I could. In thisway he has made a very strong impact on me. The way he teaches alsohas had a strong impact on me; it is thoughtful, planned, clear andsystematic where it needs to be, and where it doesn't need to be,his teaching is very open, and flowing with momentum and humor."I then asked Tenzin Rinpoche if he would share a recollection or twoabout his relationship with Lopon from back when he was growing up asa young monk at Menri Monastery.Rinpoche thought for a moment and said, "Lopon was head teacher ofthe monastery. There is a whole curriculum that needs to be followedby monks. So as a student, I was required by Lopon to followstrictly the whole curriculum, to receive all the classes from Loponas my teacher. But at the same time, Lopon was very much like afather to me. I lived with him in the same house, and for example,waking me up in the morning, he was always careful that I didn'tfall back asleep. As a kid growing up, you know, sometimes you justdon't want to wake up in the morning." Rinpoche smiled, "So, Loponwould gently make sure on those mornings to let me know first that heMon, Oct 3, 2005 12:03 PMPage 3 of 11was up, then in a bit, that everyone else was now up, and thenfinally that maybe now it was time for me to be up too!"In the evenings we'd sit together, sharing soup, sharing stories.We'd always spend time in the evening just sitting and sharingstories, anything from ghost stories, to local stories, tointernational stories."I used to love Indian movies and I would go to town to see them whenI was a monk. Lopon did not necessarily like when I would go to themovies, though. So there were evenings when I would not let him knowthat one of the stories that I was telling him came from a movie Ihad just seen. Sometimes though, during our one day off each week,we would have long walks lasting a few hours, and I would tell him astory from a movie that I had seen without his knowing, and he wouldenjoy the story so much. But when the story was from a mysterymovie, one where the ending left the audience not knowing what hadhappened to some of the characters, Lopon would keep asking me,'What happened to this person, and to that person?' "And thenfinally," Rinpoche laughed, "I would have to tell him, 'I'm sorry Idon't know because that story was really from a movie I saw lastweek!'"I wanted Rinpoche to speak about Lopon's leaving Tibet after theChinese invasion in 1959. I asked him, "What were the conditionslike for Lopon's escape over the Himalayas? And how did Lopon thenhelp in establishing the new Menri Monastery in India? How was hechosen to be the Lopon, head teacher?"Rinpoche began by explaining what he had heard many times, "WhenLopon was escaping, it was very, very difficult. There was quite alarge group of people with him trying to escape, and many of themwere killed on the way. They were attacked many times, and eachattack killed many, many people. In one attack, Lopon was shot. Thegun was so strong that the bullet penetrated through his leg and hewas injured for a few months. He was left up in the mountains wheresome of the local people took care of him. One of the monks, SherabTsultin, went back to find him and took care of him there."When Lopon finally arrived in India, of course the one thing on hismind was the community of Bonpo refugees, primarily his teachers andthose who were practicing Bon. His deep wish was to know that oneday there would be some kind of home where at least the teacherscould be and where the local people could connect to those teachers,where they could come gather together and be together."When Lopon left to go to England for three years, that wish was moston his mind. He began to ask different people there for help, andthe Catholic Relief Service helped to establish the community inDolanji. When Lopon returned to India, that became a big undertakingfor him.Mon, Oct 3, 2005 12:03 PMPage 4 of 11Rinpoche pointed out, "I came to the monastery about seven yearsafter that."Regarding how Yongdzin Rinpoche was chosen to be the new Lopon,Rinpoche explained, "Choosing the Lopon is a very organic developmentin the monastery. There are hundreds of monks studying and whoevershows the highest qualities of intellectual capacity, of openness,kindness and the ability to be with others, as well as a high degreeof development in their practice, is the one chosen to be the newLopon. So there are many, many qualities on which the choice isbased, and that I am sure they clearly saw in Yongdzin Rinpoche."I remember Lopon saying, though, that when he was chosen, he was alittle terrified of that position and that he did not want to do itinitially. It was a big responsibility, but somehow he could not sayno because it was requested of him by his teacher. So he did sayyes, and I'm very glad that he did."With our short time together almost up, I concluded my visit byasking Rinpoche a personal question, "Is it hard being away fromLopon, your teacher?"Rinpoche thought for a moment and responded, "In the beginning when Ileft the monastery after finishing my Geshe degree, it was not hardfor me to leave him. I was looking forward to exploring the worldand trying to see the world through different eyes. Back then, myleaving was probably harder on him than it was on me. After a fewyears, it felt like I had seen enough of the world. So, the firsttime Lopon came to visit me in Italy and then had to leave, it wasreally hard for me to see him go. I don't remember ever in my lifehaving that many tears or water existing in me, in my eyes; my tearswere like pouring water after he left me. It was very hard for methen. But now it is different."I went at first from not feeling bad leaving him at the monastery,to feeling no good without his presence, to later feeling fine withour being apart. I always know now that he is there for me. Everyday he is in my heart. Almost every night he is in my dreams. Andevery year I spend a few months visiting with him. I feel veryfortunate that I am able to do that. And I am continuing to plan todo so."***Thank you Rinpoche from all of our hearts!- Aline and Jeff FisherMon, Oct 3, 2005 12:03 PMPage 5 of 11**************************WORDS FROM YONGDZIN TENZIN NAMDAK RINPOCHE"Because you have been born with the ability to practice, this showssomething of how you acted in your previous lives. But now you mustconsider how to use this precious opportunity. Otherwise it will bewasted; time is passing very quickly. We must practice thereligious way, always aware of the value of time."We must also make sure that our virtuous action is not spoiled,which might happen if you don't know how to preserve its merit. Butif you know how to preserve the merit of your actions, then even asmall action, like saying a mantra once, is important. Its benefitwill always be there. We have a proverb saying that if you put onedrop of water in the ocean, then until the ocean is dry, that drop ofwater will not evaporate. In the same way, this small bit of virtue,whatever you do, is never spoiled."How do you preserve merit? Whatever virtuous action you perform,you must dedicate its merit for all sentient beings. This is veryvery important. Always consider that whatever you have done shouldbe of benefit for all sentient beings, not only for yourself. Also,it's good to reflect on the Dzogchen or other Buddhist viewsabout emptiness - that your action is really empty of self-nature, soit cannot truly become corrupted. This contemplation should be donein conjunction with the accumulation of merit and the dedication.Then the merit certainly won't be spoiled or lost."For example, sometime you might become angry, and even if you don'thit someone or express your anger in some other negative way, yourangry thoughts might destroy the merit of your previous virtuousactions. Anger is particularly dangerous - it can burn up all yourvirtue very quickly. But if you've already dedicated the merit ofyour actions and also understood them as empty, there's no problem."These are basic points we should always remember as we practice.Sometimes our situation is very pleasant and we feel happy, but wemust remember that this state is not permanent. The consequences ofour past actions will continue to manifest, and it's important totake advantage of our present opportunities to practice even more.Even when it seems we are happy and fortunate, our happiness is stillquite limited compared to that which comes from practicing theteaching. The higher bodhisattvas live in the pure realms and aremuch happier than we are. So our ordinary happiness is not final atall. It is only temporary, and we shouldn't trust it too much."[An excerpt from the preliminary comments by Yongdzin Tenzin Namdakto "The Twenty One Nails,"; an edited transcript from LigminchaMon, Oct 3, 2005 12:03 PMPage 6 of 11Institute's 3rd Annual Summer Retreat, New Mexico, 1995; thisbook "The Twenty One Nails" is a volume of teachings from the "OralTransmission of Zhang Zhung" with commentary by Yongdzin TenzinNamdak and Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, edited by Anne Klein, AnnetteJones and Steven Tainer, and published by Ligmincha Institute in 1996(transmission is required to obtain a copy of it.)]**************************"KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE" an edited excerpt from oral teachingsgiven by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, 2003.There is a big difference between knowledge and experience. It ispossible for one to have knowledge without any experience, or onemight have experience without having knowledge. Knowledge here isreferring to intellectual knowledge, not absolute knowledge.One might observe, "Everything is happening to me," experientially,but then not have any knowledge about those experiences. For somelucky people, they have no problem with that. They wouldsay, "Fantastic, it's all happening, and I don't care to know what itis." Others who have not gotten rid of the grasping mind want toknow something conceptually about the experiences and they ask,"What is that experience?" And those who have even more grasping mindwant to know more about their experience, asking questions like, "Whyis it happening? Why is it happening to me? Why now?" And thenthose who have even more grasping than that want to know, "Why did itNOT happen until now? Why did it take so long? How long will itstay?" You can get worse and worse and worse.So it's always a question of how much grasping mind you have and thenalso how much space you have to contain these experiences withoutnecessarily judging, analyzing, and putting them all into boxes andlabeling them. If you can minimize the boxes and labels, that iswonderful. But when you maximize the boxes and labels, you are justgiving yourself a hard time. It is especially true within thespiritual domain that we ask these kinds of questions too much.If, for example, you wanted to know conceptually about the functionof your eye, it might take you 10 or 15 years to study it thoroughlyenough to actually be able to know the way the eye functions and theway its one billion pieces or mechanisms work together as the eye.But I am happy not to know any of that so long as I can see thingsclearly, right? Or would you want to take issue with that andsay, "I don't care if I see or not, I just want to know conceptuallyhow the eye works to see when I see?" No, you wouldn't say that;it's enough just to be seeing clearly, to be able to see the light;it's not necessary to know everything.Mon, Oct 3, 2005 12:03 PMPage 7 of 11But when we do need to label, we have to have compassion for thatpart of ourselves, too. It's like there is someone inside you whowants to know all about something. You've heard the term "innerchild?" This is more like our "inner professor" who wants to knowabout everything intellectually with all the labels and categories.So, one's knowledge and one's experience are both very important.In dzogchen teachings we always say: you listen, you hear, youreflect, you know, you experience, you let it go. This is a greatcycle.To begin with, if you don't hear, then it is hard to be able toreflect on things. And then when you reflect on something, do youreflect on it your whole life? No. At some point, you have to havesome conclusion, right? Can you say that as a teenager you arereflecting on something and then in middle age you are stillreflecting on it and then when you are dying you are still reflectingon the same issue? This would not be very good, right? As a resultof reflecting, naturally there comes some kind of intellectualconclusion.This intellectual conclusion is so important. You conclude a certainmeaning from what you initially heard and then reflected upon. Themetaphor for this intellectual understanding is one of lighting acandle in a dark room. Prior to your concluding, you may think, "Iheard that in this room all these objects exist, but the room isstill dark so even if I've been told of all that is in here, Ihaven't seen it yet." But then the moment you light the candle, youfinally see everything; you know where everything is compared towhere you expected it all to be; that's called an intellectualdiscovery.Once you know that intellectually, then the next step is that youexperience it. Experience is a deeper kind of connection; like whenyou taste chocolate. The moment you have a taste of chocolate, doyou have a doubt about chocolate? No, you don't have a doubt aboutchocolate. So discovering something through your experience is liketasting chocolate. That's the metaphor.When you taste the chocolate, how do you taste it? You taste itfully, enjoy it, be with it, feel it; you allow the experience tolast. You live fully with that taste, rather than thinking that theexperience is going to end, or where the next chocolate will comefrom, or if there is still any chocolate left, or whether someoneelse has it now, or how I am going to get it again. You don't haveto go through all the samsaric reactions, right? You can just befully with that chocolate.So once the chocolate is finished, what do you do? Well, thechocolate is definitely free from you now so you should be free fromMon, Oct 3, 2005 12:03 PMPage 8 of 11the experience of the chocolate, too! The chocolate might say, "Ihave given myself fully to this person, even though he didn't reallyenjoy it so much because he was worrying and thinking aboutsomething. Now I'm happy to be out of here." This last step is thenotion of letting go - letting go of experience. And for us that"svery very very difficult here. Because when we first have theexperience, we say, "Well, good! Finally. After all this time! Ithought it would never happen!" Now when it happens, you jump andgrasp. We even grasp non-grasping mind. The moment you do that thenyou are right back to your old habits.In the Zhang Zhung Nyen Gyu, there is something called, "No action,no trace." What it means is that in this action you don't leavetraces behind. Like drawing in the sky. You can draw something herein space, and what do you see? Nothing. Or, it's like a bird flyingaway from a rock or a bird flying through the sky. You see the birdflying, you see the bird moving, but you also see that behind thebird there is nothing there. What it leaves behind itself is justclear space. Where it moves through is just clear space.**************************Retreat Announcement:"Part One, Ngondro" September 22-26, 2004,with Geshe Lungrig Gyaltsen, at Serenity Ridge.Part One, The Ngondro, from the Experiential Transmission of ZhangZhung (Zhang Zhung Nyam Gyu), is the entrance to a cycle of Bondzogchen, or "Great Perfection" teachings. This year we are veryfortunate to have Geshe Lungrig Gyaltsen teaching these beautiful andessential practices to us.The Ngondro teachings, a complete set of practices in themselves,offer instructions for "taming" oneself, for purification, and forperfection. These are lifelong practices appropriate for people atall stages of training and are the prerequisite for further study ofthe Experiential Transmission of Zhang Zhung. The transmission forthe practices will be given by Geshe Lungrig Gyaltsen at theconclusion of the retreat.Geshe Lungrig decided to become a monk at the age of four. At theage of 12, he enrolled in the Bon Dialectic School and completed arigorous course of traditional monastic studies including sutra,tantra, dzogchen, and astrology. In 1994, at the age of 26, he wasawarded his geshe degree from Menri Monastery, Dolanji, India. Thefollowing year geshe-la made a pilgrimage to Tibet where he taughtand gave empowerments. When he returned, he went to Kathmandu tostudy dzogchen under the guidance of Yongdzin Tenzin NamdakRinpoche. Since 2000, Geshe Lungrig has been teaching tsa lung,Mon, Oct 3, 2005 12:03 PMPage 9 of 11dzogchen, powa, chod, and astrology in various countries in Europe.Register for this retreat by August 23 for the price of $300 or afterAugust 23 for $350. Call Ligmincha at: (434) 977-6161 or e-mail:
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.**************************SANGHA SHARINGTHE SUMMER RETREAT, JULY, 2004 - A STUDENT'S EXPERIENCE.This summer I was asked to be the shrine attendant for Ligmincha'sSummer Retreat where Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche would teach from "TheTwenty-One Nails." By saying yes, I discovered the meaning of thattext for me.When I was asked to be shrine attendant, I said yes with pleasure. Asthe first day of retreat approached, I started to get nervous aboutthe Yeshe Walmo offering. For those of you who are new to Bon like Iam, the offering entails the sangha reading the Yeshe WalmoInvocation several times. During the reading, the shrine attendanthas several duties that she performs for the whole sangha in front ofthe shrine.The night before, nervous that I would fail, I just let go, thinking,all I can do is make the offering with an open heart. If I fail inthe form, I will have that openness to fall back on. I will alwayshave it, so I never need to stop expressing myself just because I amafraid that I will fail. I made a decision, a commitment to my heart.Each morning Rinpoche would go over one Nail by weaving between thetext and samsara, defining a path to apply the teachings to ourlives. Each afternoon, he asked us to work on one of four qualities:love, compassion, joy or equanimity during a sacred sound practiceusing different seed syllables. I had picked love as my quality.One day he asked us what we thought the text was about and how thepractice related to it. With the confidence I got from making theYeshe Walmo offering each day, I raised my hand. "For me, thesimplest way to think about The Twenty-One Nails is that they areinstructions on how to live with an open heart. The ideal is to getto the stage where we are stable in the nature of mind, then weshould be able to live with an open heart in everything we dospontaneously. The practice is a gradual way to show us how."Somehow, after saying that out loud, I knew what the practice haddone for me. Working with love had shown me who I was. When I wasMon, Oct 3, 2005 12:03 PMPage 10 of 11practicing, I was seeking love outside myself, but love and my heartknew better. The result was that I gave myself to my own heart withmy whole body, speech, mind, heart and soul. I gave myself theopenness to love myself for just being the way I am being at anymoment, good or bad, happy or sad. Years of indefensible masks thathave grown very heavy to carry around are beginning to drop from myface. When I look at myself, I see something I recognize.To me, "The Twenty-One Nails" isn't about my heart; it is about THEheart, the heart of space and light. But in Bon, transmission isexperiential. Can we experience the heart of space and light withoutfirst experiencing our own hearts? Can we experience our own heartswithout first taking off the masks and feeling our heart, hearing it,surrendering to it? I can't. I need to experience this in my body,speech, mind, heart and soul. This is a continuous knee-bucklingexperience for me. I am completely awed by the power of my heart.Every moment that my heart is open, I feel more alive than themoments when it is closed.At the beginning of week three, Rinpoche gave all of us who had beenat the retreat for the first two weeks permission to changequalities. Throughout the first two weeks many practitioners grewfrustrated trying to define an action plan to express the quality intheir lives. Now, given the opportunity, I changed my quality tocompassion.Around this time someone who was in a tent, asked me if she couldshare my single room. Normally, being masked by pretense, I wouldhave said yes and just dealt with the inconvenience. But I decided tolet one mask go and be true to who I was being at the time, someoneconditioned by liking her own room. I answered her directly bysaying, 'I am going to be very honest and say no.' By doing that Isaw that I am not very compassionate when it comes to my condition ofwanting some privacy.Through the help of our teacher and this practice, I have made adecision to live with an open heart for the rest of my life. Bymaking this decision I am connecting more with people. Is thiscompassion or love? Are they the same thing? Does having compassionfor your open heart compassionately connect you with others? I thinklove and compassion can be the same. If when you open your heart andgive space for love to flow, can that love become any quality that'sneeded at the time?Sometimes my body feels very light and filled with energy when myheart is open to the other people in my life. But it's hard.Sometimes it hurts to face who you are being, like being a person whowon't share her room. And it hurts a lot to change or face how youused to be. When I came back from the retreat, I had expected tospend the month of August in Africa with my new partner. But when wetried to connect, he couldn't open to the new spaciousness in me. IMon, Oct 3, 2005 12:03 PMPage 11 of 11hit a wall. I couldn't respond to his resistance to that openness. SoI decided to let us both be free to find someone who could love usfor being just the way we are. It hurts to change. But my heart issurprising me by opening unexpectedly to people I never would haveseen before or reconsidered. My partner just called. He didn't ask mefor anything; he was just opening too. I asked him if he wanted tosee me. He said yes. Living with a heart that's open means you neverstop opening. And you never know what you're going to do next becauseyou keep changing because you keep opening, over and over and overagain.With deep gratitude to our Teacher, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche forteaching us this most beautiful text, "The Twenty-One Nails," and tomy Dharma sisters Raven Wood, Kim Cary, and Aline Fisher for givingme this opportunity to serve the sangha.- Candace Byers*************************************************The Voice of Clear Light is a free, e-mail publication of Ligmincha Institute. Your suggestions andcontributions to the Voice of Clear Light are welcome. To contact us, simply reply to this message andyour email will reach the VOCL editor.Anyone may subscribe to the VOCL by sending a blank e-mail to
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We are happy to announce the first publication by Sacred Sky Press! In Indestructible: The Longevity Practice of Lama Tséwang Rikdzin, Raven Cypress Wood has beautifully translated and annotated parts of Tséwang Rikdzin's text, the Tsewang Jarima. Known as the “King of Longevity,” eighth century Tibetan master Tséwang Rikdzin composed many ritual texts aimed at alleviating suffering and was a dzogchen master. The book was first made available during Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche’s fall retreat at Serenity Ridge. Now it is available to all.

The hardcover has a dust jacket and contains color word highlights and several color photos. The paperback contains the same contents, but with black and white text and interior photos.Order copies here

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Voice of Clear Light is a free email publication of Ligmincha International. Your suggestions and contributions to Voice of Clear Light are welcome. To contact us, send an email to: voiceofclearlight@ligmincha.org

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